The man is overheard saying, “You need a f *** bat in the side of the head,” and that she “f ***ing deserved it” when he punched her in the face. The call includes the man panting and gasping for breath as he continues screaming.

“Listen to my f — ing ranting. Listen to what you do to me!” the man is heard saying.

“You need medication,” she says. “I need a woman!” the man says. “I don’t need medication. You need a f***ing bat in the side of the head. How about that?”

Grigorieva, 40, is trying to get custody of their daughter. She filed a complaint with police last week that launched a domestic violence investigation against the 54-year-old star.

In the recording, she says Gibson punched her in the face.

“You were hitting a woman with a child in her hands,” she says. “You. What kind of a man is that? Hitting a woman when she’s holding a child in her hands? Breaking her teeth, twice, in the face. What kind of man is that?” “Oh, you’re all angry now!” the man replies. … :You f***ing deserved it!”

Gibson was once a high-flying action hero on the big screen, Tracy notes, but now, “It’s his career that’s going up in flames.”

His longtime talent agency dropped him last week after another expletive-filled recording surfaced.

Says publicist Howard Bragman, “Almost anybody with an ounce of compassion is offended by this man right now, and nobody in Hollywood wants to be the one to say, ‘Yeah, I’ll be in business with him.”‘

A sentiment the man on the tape seems to echo when he says, “So that’s why I’m so f***ing angry, because I don’t have any friends. The career is over!”

On “The Early Show” Tuesday, former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Robin Sax says it’s the man’s not denying Grigorieva’s domestic violence accusations that could prove most important in a courtroom if the case ever gets there.

“That is probably the single most important part of the tapes,” Sax says. “Obviously all of the epitaphs and all of the awful slurring and derogatory and expletives are helpful in terms of the prosecution of a case. But the fact that he did not actually deny the statement, the allegations — he calls her every other name in the book, why isn’t he calling her a liar if that’s what she is?”